I am pleased to be able to pre-announce the first annual ATP photo contest.

Start date: October 25, 2014
Category judging begins November 8, 2014
Best of Show judging begins November 10, 2014
The final winners announced November 11, 2014

Times are in UTC, so the contest will actually launch on this Friday evening at 7:00pm CT.

I am pleased to announce that the contest is sponsored by American Meadows and High Country Gardens, and they are offering a combined total of $400 in gift certificates for the first 3 Best of Show winners. The coveted ATP coffee mugs will be offered for 4th, 5th and 6th place Best of Show.

This is going to be a huge contest, and will be a lot of fun. We have so many talented photographers here, with so many beautiful gardens, I am very excited to see what photos get submitted. You will be allowed to submit 5 photos into each of the 15 categories.

So, hit the homepage on Friday evening for more details. Until then, start picking through your photo collection and prepare your files.

Sounds great, Dave. I'm looking forward to enjoying the photos.

Me too!

Late to the party as usual . . . but I wanted to put in my 2 cents about categories, in the spirit of thinking outside the box. Or keeping things simpler?

Instead of categories of plants (of which there are so very many) how about grouping the photos in categories based on . . how to describe it . . distance?

Close-ups (macro) to include tiny flowers, plant detail and insects
Individual bloom, fruit, leaf or seed pod - "cameo" shots?
One plant shrub or tree
Multi-plant groupings
Small garden areas, to include wildlife
Garden scenery, large area, to include wildlife

Just thinking that there's no reason a picture of my orchid can't be judged on its merit against a picture of Ann's daylily, or a picture of an area of a garden in Florida against a garden in the Pac NW. It's not any easier to judge only pictures of, say, daylilies against one another.

I am not going to make any suggestions for the overall categories but over the last many years I have written a lot Schedules for flower shows and wording must be precise. For instance Elaine suggests a category worded "Small garden area, to include wildlife. To me that would indicate that the picture should include wildlife. Better wording would be "may include wildlife." I'm think others might be confused also.

Waiting to see the final list of categories Friday. This is going to be so much fun, even if a person doesn't submit photos. Just seeing all the submissions will be amazing.

The categories for 2014 were discussed a couple weeks ago and are now set in stone. We can revisit the category issue in 2015 for next year's contest.

Yup. Although Elaine makes some interesting suggestions. But for now, I say, relax and enjoy the show! Hope this turns out to be a regular feature. Who, me? Like pretty pictures? Nah!

Good point on the wording, Paul. You're so right, "may" is what I meant for sure.

Dave, I figured you'd have things set in stone by now, but maybe for next year?

This is going to be so much fun! I'm looking forward to seeing many beautiful photographs from our members and I hope to get a chance to get out and take a few pictures to enter myself.

How nice of American Meadows: http://www.americanmeadows.com... and High Country Gardens: http://www.highcountrygardens.... to offer such generous prizes ... and we can't forget the prize of the wonderful ATP Coffee Mugs, a photo can be seen here: http://garden.org/thread/view_...

Get those camera's shooting folks and .... let the fun begin!

What?? No prize of many acorns?

No acorns planned this time. Although...

Golly, where is that emoticon? The one of the spoiled child, arms crossed over her chest, tapping her foot, and staring at the ceiling.
That would come in mighty handy at the moment. Here I am speeding my way through the camera instruction manual, finally learned how to do this:


or the more artsy version:


or this one, which would have been great if only the sun had cooperated just a bit more:


...and not an acorn in sight?? Foot tapping... ... ... ...

greene said:
or this one, which would have been great if only the sun had cooperated just a bit more:

I think the lighting was perfect in this one. Great shot and best of those three

!

It's a gorgeous shot, greene. What?? Are you trying to intimidate the competition?

(now I'm frantically searching for the instruction manual to my camera, too . . . Oh well, it will help me get to sleep fast tonight.)

, I am happy that some folks like the pictures.

Page 168 'Processing Images with Digital Filters' is as far as I have read so far - well, that's actually the page I am stuck on.
There is no way I can learn it all in a hurry.

No intimidation from me, no worries. I am just having fun holding up my end of the conversation about the contest. Besides, there are no acorn prizes so .

@dave

Can photos that were taken previously, but not submitted to ATP be used for the contest?

Or photos taken and previously submitted to ATP, can they be in the contest?

Or do they have be new photos taken from the start of the contest?